D is for Lots of Things
by WritingByNight
Summary: Demons. Darkspawn. Dragon Age. - DA2 character vignettes to the theme of Neil Gaiman's Sandman. Part 4: Anders prepares for his destruction.
1. Destiny

It is the story that will never be told.

Looking back, he should have recognized the signs - all the marks of narrative convenience. A chance encounter with a mysterious stranger, on a dark and stormy Kirkwall night. All too eager to leave the Merchant's Guild Hall, he'd strolled through labyrinthine Lowtown, the slow confident swagger of one who's well paid up with the Coterie, and for everyone else there was no better escort than Bianca.

And he wasn't sure when it happened.

This was his city - Nothing happened without his knowledge.

But he turned right. Left. Left again, down serpentine streets. Right, and worn stucco walls became finely tended hedges. Left, and rough cobblestone shifted into a cultivated earthen path. And then he had to stop, bewildered and utterly lost in a garden that was not in his city, and perhaps not even on Thedas.

"Greetings to you, Varric Tethras, in this place." The tall human (but then, what human wasn't tall?) welcomed him, robed and hooded in dark brown, and he cast no shadow despite the old red sun that hung in the sky.

Notoriety was slightly more familiar territory. "You know of me?"

"I know of everyone." The man shifted the book that he carried, chains clinking where it was bound to the wrist. Varric couldn't read the words on its cover, but it looked extremely heavy. "You tell stories."

"What can I say?" He smiled, spread out his hands in a disarming gesture. "All businessmen have their quaint, little hobbies."

"Most stories fall under my brother's domain, things that are not, were not, and never will be, but too often are their heroes constrained by mine."

"Which is?"

"Exactly."

Varric chuckled uneasily, furrowed his brow. "I'm afraid I don't understand."

"That which _is_. Of actions and choices and consequences; truthful tales that are the hardest to tell."

"Is this what they call the Fade?" He said, asking the obvious question. He'd heard the rumors, of course, mages in the Gallows fleeing out into Kirkwall's dark, twisting streets, and right on through the Veil. "Because if this is, I can't say that anyone will believe it... a dwarf in the Fade."

"No. This place is beyond dreaming, beyond beginnings and endings. Where the storyteller exists, alone." The man's impassive face then flickered with an almost fleeting moment of sympathy, some shared weight. He tilted his head down, opening his great tome as alacritous fingers skimmed along its aged pages with sightless eyes. "I am sorry, I had thought that you might... ah, I see. Not yet. No matter."

The man flipped several hundreds pages from left to right, once more finding his place, and turned to go.

"Hey now," Varric protested, stepping forward as if to stop him, and, instead, stepping right smack into the door of the Hanged Man.

He needed a hell of a lot of drinks after that. But even as the story faded, under the haze of alcohol and with the passage of time, it was never forgotten.

It is the story he has held back a thousand times, watching her own unravel and unwind, a woman thrust into forces beyond her control, never knowing if each choice she has made was the right one.

It swam in his throat, pressed against his teeth, seeing how she and the healer danced around each other, fell in love with and _changed_ each other, thinking that it would only end in tears.

And the story almost escapes him, now, as the Seeker paces, demanding the _truth_ from him, the outside observer, and he slumps against the high-back chair, utterly weary, for truth is hard and bound with heavy chains.

Sighing, Varric takes the book in hand, this story he will never get away from, and his fingers brush the Hawke crest, reading through gloves and skin - a pantomime of a blind man long ago.

"You'll need to hear the whole story." He smiles sadly, and understands the mystery man's empathy at last.

No one ever wants to know the storyteller's story. Their burden, after all, is always the same.


	2. Death

She is eighteen years old, and she is dying.

It's the most transient of intervals, the space of two fluttering heartbeats or that short-lived glow of a candle's flame freshly snuffed out. Between the Ogre's first bone-shattering _slam_ and the second one, she is dying she is _dying_ and just like that the dying part is over with - the scary part is done.

And as the beast carelessly tossed her corpse aside she couldn't help but think, quite relieved: Well, that wasn't too bad.

"I'm glad you think so."

A lily-white hand reached down to help her to her feet, and she took it, standing with something like a full-body shiver. The hand was connected to a lily-white woman with black hair like a storm-cloud, and she looked from the silver sigil down to her own mortal remains with dawning realization.

"Oh, the Maker has an _awful_ sense of humor. I never did get to have sex."

"Not everyone does."

Bethany chuckled weakly. "Yes, but not everyone knows what they're missing." For the thought of dying a virgin was somehow worse than the thought of being dead.

"Well, it's not always hearts and flowers. Sometimes it's awkward. Or messy. Or awkwardly messy. And the faces you make can be terribly funny."

"Still – it would have been nice." Bethany sighed, and, looking up at last, she noticed with fierce satisfaction that the Vallens and her family had prevailed. As they approached her fallen form, Bethany could see how desperately Marian was trying to hold it together for Mother, and Carver -

_Carver was looking at them._

His mouth was partially open in a rictus of disbelief, blinking rapidly as his eyes tried to convince him what his brain stubbornly insisted could not be true. He was standing close enough that she could touch him, though Bethany knew that if she tried her hand would pass right through.

"Twins always know." Death said softly, as if speaking from experience.

Her brother; her twin, and therefore half of her. No wonder he could see them - part of him has died as well.

For the first time since the pain ended, anxiety flooded her, and she pleaded at Death with hopeful eyes. "They're be all right, won't they? Mari's always tried to put on a brave front, and Carver, oh, Carver he can be such an _idiot_ at times that I - "

"It wasn't all for nothing, Bethany. I promise." Death's smile radiated like sunshine. "Are you ready?"

She nodded, pulled into Death's embrace, and the last thing Bethany felt was being nestled by comforting, feathery wings.

* * *

><p>He is twenty years old, and he is dying.<p>

It wasn't the creep of the Blight that told him, as it forged slowly, painfully, through his veins, but that he could see _her_, again. She lingered, a hazy presence just beyond the periphery of his vision, like an old childhood imaginary friend, and whenever he might turn his head to try to catch sight of her she only smiled and faded away.

"Don't go," He begged, throat burning with thirst.

"I'm right here. I'm here, Carver." His sister's voice trembled, barely masking the panic beneath. "We're almost there, just hold on." And he shook his head wearily, knowing she wouldn't understand.

It's funny. He'd spent so long bemoaning his state of constantly being defined as the _non-mage sibling_ he had forgotten his other label as _twin_, and between the two of them his younger sister definitely got the more merciful ending.

His sister; his twin, and therefore half of him - Why won't she claim the rest?

His skin felt hot, too hot, and his eyes ached with the effort of seeing as Marian bid him a tearful goodbye. Muscles screamed, and teeth shuddered whilst the Wardens bear him away, walking and walking with her beside him, just dancing out of reach. He is dying, he is _dying_, and -

_They gave him a chalice of darkspawn blood, and they told him to drink._

"I'm here, Carver." Death said.

He exhaled, quite relieved. One way or another it would be over with.

The cup clattered to the floor as he doubled over, the blood frothing and twisting and _changing_, and when Death finally stepped forward she took him by the face, and kissed him on the cheek.

"Be seeing you." She smiled, and then she was gone.

He is now thirty years old, and still dying.


	3. Dream

She had always been warned to place no trust in her dreams.

Dreaming, for a mage, was dangerous - a nightmare land constructed of shadows and illusions and lies. But mages were also made of magic and mystery, and the Dalish lived in the past; dreams were all her people had. Who could be able to trust them, turn these dreams into reality, if not her?

It's the Keeper's job to remember, for only a Keeper can recall what has transpired when they leave the world of dreams and step out into waking.

She remembered it was after they lost Tamlen and Mahariel, and the guilt of the wrapped-up mirror shard burned through her belongings. The Keeper had to know about it; she'd given her that Look more than once as they traveled towards the coast, and she wasn't surprised that her dream-self held the fragment now.

As she walked the lonely paths she came to a figure at a crossroads, at a place thought forever lost before the fall of Arlathan, and behind it were the fabled Gates of Ivory and Horn, where all the spirits of the Fade could call home. The figure, however, did not seem like a spirit; he was not anything Merrill had ever seen, and standing before the twin gates, with black hair and white skin and eyes like dark stars, he seemed very much to be made equally of each.

"_Tok_. I don't think the kid's a vortex, Boss," the raven on his arm croaked. "Sure, he's calling nightmares for miles around, but he's definitely not subverting the Dreaming - "

"**No. _Somniari_, then. The first in two Ages.**"

"... You gonna do anything about him?"

"**There are Rules. Either he will master it, or it will master him, as all the others. It is only the outcome that concerns -** " He paused, noticing her, and the mirror she carried. "**...Thank you, Matthew, that will be all**."

Merrill stood transfixed as the bird took flight; Dirthamen, too, walked the Fade and learned its secrets. He had subdued and bound the ravens, Fear and Deceit, into his service, but the ravens scattered when their master was tricked, as all their gods and the Forgotten Ones were tricked, and now only one being roamed the Fade unchallenged.

"The Dread Wolf!" She whimpered, trembling in fear.

Laughter, dark and sweet. "**Fen'Harel? That is as good a name for me as any**."

"You... you caused our gods to abandon us."

Amusement faded, and cold arrogance replaced it. "**I am this realm's Maker. All gods begin and end here, and Faith and Doubt cannot dwell in the same home.**" He nodded to the two gates behind him, horn and ivory respectively. "**If you believe your gods abandoned you, then you have no one to blame for their abandonment but yourselves.**"

She shrunk in on herself, pinched her hand in an attempt to try and wake, and seeing her distress Fen'Harel's countenance melted with pity.

"**...Come here, little dreamer. I have not conserved with one of the People since _in uthenera_, and you carry something of mine.**"

She stilled then, staring at the Bringer of Nightmares. "This is yours?"

"**It was.**" He took the fragment, and held it out into the space of the Fade where it hung in place, a glittering star among the blackness. Sand swirled around them, rising from the ground to attach to the mirror, making a simulacrum of the completed object. "**The Eluvians were gifts, made of tempered dream-sand, that they might link the People beyond the Fade to its Heart, no matter how far you walked.**"

"The Heart?"

"**Of Dreaming**." The Trickster looked up, and following his gaze, she saw a great city in the sky. The Black City, she knew the humans called it. But instead, she saw Arlathan. "**Like myself, it is a reflection of the dreamer**."

She trembled again, but with hope instead. "Could it be cleansed? Repaired? Oh, if I were able to fix it so much of what we've lost could be recovered... Will you help me?"

"**No**."

"I... you don't want it fixed?"

"**It would not be wise. The People failed in their trust to protect them the first time, and thus Magisters loosed a nightmare on the waking world. It must not happen again, so I mislike uninvited guests.**

She proudly raised her chin. "It's a Keeper's job to remember."

Stars glinted dangerously in his eyes. "**Then I trust you will remember this, Merrill Alerion, First to Keeper Marethari Sabrae. This mirror has fallen into the same corruption; I do not advise repair. The costs will be too high.**"

She would, indeed, remember the conversation, his dark voice laughing in her head, and when she heard Audacity's whispers in the night, in her pride she thought she could be like Fen'Harel, the Trickster, and trick the demon in turn.

Thus, she imagined he was not surprised when she failed, when he came to her in the waking world after all her dreams were shattered, like the mirror that she shattered when it would show nothing but the fleeting reflections of a gray woman - of her own despair - and found her crying.

"You... you look different." She sniffled; his hair was now all white to match his robes, and he wore a green stone that reflected the burning fire in his eyes.

"**I changed**." He said simply, and she knew this to be true. "**So must you. It's a Keeper's job to remember - but a Keeper also knows that some things are better left forgot.**"

Dabbing at her eyes, Merrill looked into his sad smile, and found herself trusting in a new dream.

Not of the past this time, but the future.


	4. Destruction

It seemed inevitable that it would end like this, as all things beautiful and bright eventually fell to ruin.

They were both too determined towards self-destruction, him with vengeance, and her with him, and one could not seek to bring about change without becoming changed in turn.

He had wished and hoped that it could be different, sharing in her naïve optimism about them and the world. He had warned and pleaded to try and spare them both, denying desire's burn for her and a life more ordinary.

But revolutions were too often fought and won by the sword, and as he spent too much of these dark days fighting with alchemical formulas, away from her sweetly-stolen moments, the time had nearly come for him to cut himself out of her life.

And if he did it right, she, at least, would endure.

"You remind me of my brother. He used to mope and molder in the dark like that..."

Anders raised his head from his hands to view the stranger at his clinic door, a bindle over his shoulder, and was struck with a niggling sense of familiarity at the red-haired and bearded man with the typical build from the Anderfels. Something about his golden eyes, perhaps. Like his father; Like his own.

"Are you a refugee?"

He laughed at that, big and boisterous, straight from the belly. "I suppose I am, in my fashion. I'm a traveler, certainly… and I'm in need of no healing," He added, as Anders rose to assume his responsibilities. "But I wouldn't say no to some bread or cheese if you have any."

"Of course… Just a moment," Anders nodded, and ducked into the back room to retrieve a small packed lunch that Marian, bless her, always insisted he took with him. When he returned the stranger was overlooking his formulas with a professional interest, even making alterations with his quill, and at this intrusion, Justice flared with outrage. "Keep away from that!"

"Settle down, lad. You _and_ your little dream-friend," The man glanced up, and smiled widely, his utter ease and knowledge of their condition giving them pause. "I'm just fixing your formula, that's all. It's all wrong… Not enough sulfur, by far. It was less of a bang, and more of a whimper if you get my meaning."

"I – thank you." He said lamely, over the buzz of the spirit's caution and confusion. He could feel, now, the latent power radiating from this stranger. "You… know about Justice?"

"Indeed. His Maker fashioned him with the fervor of _my_ domain, but they never quite work out how you'd think, dreams." The quill scratched out a final, uneven blot. "There we are. And _thank you_," He said, accepting the basket of food from Anders to look inside it. "Mm, Ferelden cheddar, rustic and simple… Your lady is a woman after my own heart."

Anders hesitated, but the question on his tongue could not be ignored. "What – are you?"

"An expatriate, as I said. And an expert in what it's like to struggle with dual purpose. Something I imagine you and your friend would know about."

Anders sagged into his chair, wretchedly. "I – we can't ignore it any longer. Something has to change."

"Everything changes eventually. You don't need to be the one that does it."

"Yes, I do."

"Tch. Just like my brother. 'The more things stay the same' is right." The stranger sighed, and re-evaluated Anders slowly with something like approval, which Anders never thought he'd see coming from his father's golden eyes. "Still – You're more than just a dream, which is good because you always need more than just dreams for something to change, and you're a sight better at creation than myself, let me tell you… here –"

He tossed Anders a large golden coin, and Anders reflexively caught it, turning it over to look at it. On one side it had a sword, the other the flourishing symbol for the school of creation magic. "A coin has two sides, lad - but it also has an _edge_. Maybe it will help you… maybe not. But that's ultimately _your_ business, not mine."

With a broad grin the man shouldered his belongings, bidding Anders good luck by name - his real name, Anders recognized - and he turned the corner with a tuneless whistle.

He wouldn't understand the man's words at the time. Neither of them did, of the necessity for him and Justice to find a place of balance, an edge where creation and destruction met to work in harmonious renewal, and the coin quickly became forgotten in his pouch as more pressing thoughts of sela petrae and drakestone haunted his mind. Things changed, however –

"You've been thumbing that coin for a while - the edge is worn smooth."

"Have I?"

"Mmhm. You always bring it out after a long day of healing. Is it from the Anderfels?"

"No… It's from a friend, I think. It was his advice."

"Oh. Did it help?" She said sleepily, and nuzzled further into his embrace.

He kissed the top of her tangled hair, feeling the echoing warmth of emotion from Justice as well. "I think it is."

Everything has changed. The world; even themselves. And sometimes, not everything has to be lost.


End file.
